Fintech

I regularly attend conferences where several themes crop up around disruption – that word we hate – disintermediation, and the end of banking as we know it.  The problem is I’ve heard it for 30 years and it hasn’t happened … yet.  Will it?  Let’s have a look. The first theme is that banks are…

Talking about transformation at conferences every day gets you into a mantra.  My mantra is leadership and how banks lack technological leadership.  The pushback is that you have too many technologists without banking knowledge.  We need banks run by people who understand money, and they can tell the technologists what to do. I’m not so…

I know many of my twitter followers have seen this news already, but here’s the official announcement of the partnership we are creating with Life.SREDA in Singapore. SINGAPORE-BASED LIFE.SREDA LAUNCHES $100 MILLION BLOCKCHAIN INVESTMENT FUND LONDON, APRIL 18 2016 Life.SREDA, a venture capital fund based in Singapore, has partnered with financial expert and fintech specialist…

One of the interviewees in my new book ValueWeb is Ron Suber, President of Prosper Marketplace Lending. Ron gave a speech last week which is summarized below. Well worth a read. Marketplace Lending: Evolution of an Asset Class (The following post is excerpted from a keynoted speech I gave at the 2016 LendIt USA conference) Over…

I just had a really interesting, off-the-record, discussion with a banker. Can’t give too much detail therefore, but here’s how the conversation went: “So, what’s it like working for MegaRetailBank?” “Shocking”, he said. “They are completely branch focused. Here’s an illustration. They launched a new retail bank subsidiary in a country in 2008. That country…

Those of you who know me, know that I hate the word channel and any adjunct that goes with it. This is because channel shows a lack of digital depth, as it’s just sticking something on top of the old architecture or lipstick on a pig if you prefer. It doesn’t work. I have other…

We had a fascinating chat about digital identities at the Innovate Finance Global Summit (#ifgs2016) today. It was a private roundtable with members of government, central banks, the banking and Fintech community and commentators/observers. Listening to the dialogue going to and fro, I realised that this is one nut that’s too tough to crack. Here’s…

As mentioned I’ve just attended #Money2020Europe where 4,000 folks gathered to listen to great speakers like me.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get long to stay at the show for various reasons, but did pick up a magazine about Copenhagen as a FinTech hub.  Everywhere wants to be a FinTech hub, now that the scene is so…

This week is #Money2020Europe week in Copenhagen.  Considering it’s the first time they’ve run Money2020 over here, it’s pretty impressive to have over 3,500 people attending.  I’m chairing a couple of plenary sessions tomorrow with Commerzbank, Tandem Bank and Western Union, and have been tracking events so far.  Lots of headlines, but the one really worth…

OK, I see weird things everywhere.  Last week in Japan … But even the Japanese cannot beat the guys in the Middle East.   A few days before I went to Tokyo I was in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at a conference called MEFTECH, where one exhibitor proudly showed me the Beam app. Beam…